It was the joy of that returning that fairly shouted in his voice when he bade Gail good-bye and told her he would have something to tell her when he returned. That joy that she thought was all for the girl in the newspaper.
All the way to Washington he was not thinking of what he would say to Dorothy Stanford; he was dreaming of Gail Desmond's eyes and the way she smiled when she was tired. He remembered her clear profile as it had looked against the sunset sky the night before, or the soft brown waves of her wonderful hair, shining as if touched with gold, or her voice at twilight as she read a psalm, and his soul was thrilling with the love of her. It was because her presence seemed to be with him that the journey did not tell upon his newfound strength. He rested in the thought of her as he had rested while he was recovering.
When he reached Washington and took a cab to Dorothy's home, he still was not troubling over what he was to say or how to meet the girl who thought him lying at the bottom of the sea. He was planning what he would take to Gail and whether there would be time for him to get the evening train back to the shore. He was most impatient to find Dorothy and be done with the business.
It was a new servant who let him into the Stanford mansion, and calling cards were not among the articles he had remembered to order when he wrote his first letters for necessities.
"Is Miss Stanford at home?" he asked eagerly as he entered.
The man said that she was.
"Then please ask her if I may see her at once. I haven't a card with me."
Benedict was too much absorbed to realize the servant would not know his name and was not surprised when the man said, "Yes, sir," and moved off without delay. In fact, the servant had taken him for one of Miss Dorothy's friends who was there but the day before and sent up word to her that Mr. Briggs had called.
Miss Dorothy took her time as usual getting ready. She was always one who made an effective entrance and realized that a delay sometimes only made her coming more welcome.
Benedict sat idly looking about the great handsome room where he had spent so many weary hours waiting in the past. He drew a breath of relief that he was no longer under the bondage of fear lest when she came her mood would not be friendly. He realized with joy that he could look at the great mass of American Beauty roses in a crystal bowl on the table without a pang of jealousy toward him who had sent them. Those were likely Briggs's roses. Poor fellow! What a lot of anxious hours he would have to spend there waiting for his erratic lady. But perhaps he was wronging Dorothy. Perhaps it was because she had not really loved him that she had treated him so. It might be that she really loved Briggs and would never turn from him to others. Well, be that as it might, he knew now as he sat in the old place waiting for her to come that he did not love her, and never could have loved her. He was impatient to be gone that he might go back to the shore that night.
It almost troubled him that he could have changed so. It seemed weak and wavering to have been so sure about her and now not to care at all, and yet there were all those months, more than a year of them, that she had held him at a distance. While he tried to excuse himself, it suddenly came to him that until Gail came into his vision he had never known his ideal, had never dreamed what a woman could be.
At last he heard footsteps on the polished stair. How often the sound had stirred his pulses. Not a thrill came to them now, only relief that at last she was near and he could have it over. It was going to be so much easier now that he knew of her engagement to Briggs. That made everything clear and plain, and they could meet on a matter-of-fact, friendly basis and let bygones be bygones in a most cheerful way.
He looked up to see her as she approached, a dainty figure in a striking gown of shimmering old rose, her head dropped sideways in the old attitude, her eyes beneath down-drooping lashes about to be swept upward in greeting. How often he had stood and watched for the second when she would look up that way to him, her dark eyes full of hidden mysteries, coquetting even in seriousness. But now as he rose to meet her, he felt half impatient of the delay.
He stepped toward her, and her small white hand went out to meet his, and the eyes swept upward as their habit, but there was no smile of welcome, no pretty deference, no easy moving forward to a chair after greeting. Instead she drew back as if in sudden fear and clasping her hands to her heart cried out, a ring of terror in her voice, her eyes large with apprehension, her whole attitude expressing consternation.
"Oh! Oh!" she cried, as if she could not take her gaze away, putting up her hands and pressing them upon her eyes to shut out the vision of him.
"Why Dorothy! Is anything the matter?" he asked, coming nearer in astonishment. "Are you ill? Won't you let me help you to a chair? Shall I ring for a glass of water?"
He would have drawn her to a chair, but she shrank away from him in horror, one hand upon her heart, her eyes wide and searching his face fearfully. "Why Dorothy, I don't understand. Won't you tell me what is the matter? I surely haven't startled you this way. You are not afraid of me, are you? I have only come to congratulate you on your engagement."
A scream from the girl's lips stopped his words, and she turned as if she would have fled, but he caught her by the wrist and drew her into the room.
"See here, Dorothy!" he said, suddenly comprehending. "I'm not a ghost. I didn't drown. I was saved and floated to shore. I'm perfectly alive and myself, and I've only come up to Washington for an hour or two to talk things over with you and get a few matters straightened out. You needn't be at all afraid of me. I've just come to tell you that you needn't feel at all embarrassed by the past. I feel that things are all right as they are."
But the girl had sunk into a chair and was shaking with sobs, her white face hidden by her hands, her whole small frame convulsed.
Chapter 11
Benedict suddenly became aware of the mighty change that had taken place in himself. If this scene had occurred a year ago, he would have wanted to take her in his arms like a little child and comfort her. The tiny curl in the back of her neck was strongly in evidence, but it had no effect upon him. He was instead conscious of being annoyed that the business he had come for must be delayed in this way, and he stood looking down on her perplexed--and suddenly feeling his own bodily weakness, which until now had been held in abeyance by his own happy thoughts and his desire to get through and to get back to Gail.
Every instinct of manly courtesy demanded now that he do something to relieve the sufferings of the girl whom he had obviously frightened into a hysterical state, but in spite of himself he could think of nothing to do. What was there to do for a little creature like that in such a state unless you took her in your arms, and he had no right nor desire to do that. Indeed he felt a growing impatience with her foolishness and childish ways. Why couldn't she be a woman and sit up and behave now that she was actually engaged to be married? What a woman for a man to make his wife anyway! Gail would never have been so silly! Gail who drew him upon her raft and held him in her arms through the storm and wildness, knowing not yet whether he were dead or living! His heart quickened as he thought of her, and he sat down and tried to hasten matters.
"Dorothy," he said gently, "won't you listen to me? I haven't come to reproach you. I've only come to say it's all right. Don't you understand? I saw the notice of your engagement announced in the papers and came at once. I didn't want you to think I held any ill will."
"I thought you were dead!" sobbed the girl. "I did indeed. Everybody told me there wasn't any possibility of your being saved."
A cold chill crept to his heart. Was she going to claim him again in the old way and try to hold him? He frowned and drew his chair back a little, trying to think what was the best thing to say without being brutal in his frankness, but the childish voice went on:
"I was always fond of you, Clinton, you know, but nobody knew we were engaged, and you know how horrid and old I always look in black, and Arthur had been pestering me for months."
Benedict drew back with a sudden re
lieved laugh, so natural and happy that the girl looked up from her applied weeping in astonishment and growing chagrin.
"Well, that's all right. Of course, Dorothy, when I was drowned you had a perfect right to call our engagement off and make what other arrangements you thought best. You needn't apologize. I'm glad you did it. In fact, I had already made up my mind before the disaster, even before I sailed, that you and I had made a mistake."
"No, Clinton, I was always very fond of you," sighed the girl, "only I was so young, you know, and it was so nice to have a good time before I settled down. And then it was so really hard to tell which one you liked best among a lot of nice men. You like one for one reason, and another for another, you know. Now I always did admire the way you comb your hair and the way you help a lady into a car. But Eddie Cady has perfectly lovely teeth and such a good taste in flowers, and Arthur dances perfectly divinely."
"Is that the reason you have decided to marry him then?" asked Benedict contemptuously. Was it possible he ever found amusement in a childish creature like this? He half turned from her and stared out through the window into the familiar street. It almost seemed as though he had been transported into another world and was merely being permitted to look back now and see himself as he had once been.
"Oh, no, not altogether!" sighed Dorothy contentedly. "I don't know as I should have done it if you had been alive. You were always so charming, too, you know, and let me do what I wanted to."
"Thank God I was not alive then," murmured Benedict under his breath.
"What was that you said, Clinton? I didn't hear. Why do you stay off there by the window with your face muffled in the curtains? I wish you would come and sit down and behave like yourself. What was the remark you made? You needn't be so savage."
Benedict turned quietly and came back to his chair.
"You cannot dance through your life," he said. "I was wondering what you are proposing to do after you are married if your choice of a husband rests entirely on how well he can dance."
Dorothy pouted.
"Now, you are horrid. I don't like you when you talk like that. I didn't say I was going to marry Arthur Briggs merely because I'm engaged to him. I may change my mind before that time. Besides, I don't see why I shouldn't dance through my life if I want to."
Benedict looked at her in a kind of hopeless contempt, which after all was more for himself and his former infatuation than for the silly girl.
"Well, Dorothy," he said, "I'm sure I've no objection to your dancing through life if you want to, and I am glad you have found a partner to your taste. But if I were in his place, I should not feel very well satisfied with an engagement that means as little to you as all that. However, that's his business and not mine. I just came in to congratulate you and to say that you have my best wishes and all that sort of thing. I didn't want you to think that I'm going about mourning all my days, for I'm not. I've got bravely over my feeling for you, which I thought at the time was love, but which I have found out since was not, and I'm mighty glad you are engaged to Arthur Briggs."
"You're not going already?" said Dorothy tearfully as he rose. He had never acted like this before. She didn't know what to make of it. He was piqued, of course, and trying to bluff it out, and he really acted his part well, but it was not in her plan to let him go away like that. She never actually dismissed her followers. She liked to keep them her slaves through life and cast them a languid smile now and then, feeling what a thrill of might-have-been it gave them to bask in its transient light. She liked to have every man where she could call him to her bidding at a moment's notice. She liked to play one off against another who was a little too overbearing. And this one who had been dead and was alive again, and whose devotion had been the gossip of society for a year, this one she must keep at all hazards. Therefore she said tearfully, "You're not going already?" with the sweet reproach in her voice that had never before failed to put him just where she wanted him.
"Yes, I'm going," said Benedict cheerfully. "I've stayed longer now than I really meant to. I want to catch a train at four thirty, and I've an errand or two before I leave the city."
"But you've only just come, and you've been almost dead. It's been terrible to think about your being dead, you've always seemed so--so kind of strong, as if nothing could ever hurt you. You surely will sit down for me when I ask you. I have a great many things to tell you. Let your errands go and telephone them, and don't leave town today. I want you to stay."
"I'm sorry to refuse, but my errand is very important and it cannot be done by telephone, and I must leave town tonight."
There was a new hearty ring in his voice as if he were glad he must leave town tonight that made Dorothy sit up and take notice. She stared at him with a puzzled expression for a moment, this tall, handsome man who had been her abject slave for so long and who presumed to order his times against her wishes. Then she tried her sweeter wiles. She drooped her lovely head, and her long lashes adorably fringed her softly flushed cheek.
"You don't love me anymore," she said in a low, sad voice that trembled.
"Why, no, Dorothy, I don't," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "In fact, to be perfectly frank, as I have told you, I don't believe I ever really loved you at all in the way I thought I did. I think it was all a terrible mistake, which I'm glad we found out in time before it was forever too late."
There was something in his tone that was strangely chilling, but still she thought he was bluffing to lead her on.
"You talk as if you were saying good-bye!" she pouted.
"Why, I am," he said frankly. "From this time our ways will have to part."
She was still a long minute, the kind of demure emotional stillness that had never failed before to work its mystery on the victim. Then she lifted the long eyelashes with coy shyness, a glint of tears in her eyes, a hint of a sorry smile about the charming lips, a lurking dimple in the lovely curve of her cheek near the corner of her mouth, lure in the very turn of her head, seduction in her very glance. She was staking her last chance.
"Don't you want to kiss me, Clinton?" she murmured softly, tenderly, in the voice she knew he used to love and seek to provoke.
She lifted a little, white ringless hand from which she had slipped Briggs's diamond a moment before and held it out suggestively, with modest shyness.
It was one of those tense moments that she knew so well how to create and that she seldom allowed to be too frequent in the experience of one man. She stood in breathless expectation and the very air of the elegant drawing room seemed palpitating. Benedict drew sharply back and spoke with ringing firmness in his clear voice: "No, Dorothy, it wouldn't be right, and I don't want to!"
The girl looked up half frightened at his tone, startled into a question that afterward she wished she had not asked: "Why?" There was lure in her face yet, and her voice was tender and innocent and grieved. No man had ever yet resisted that from her. It was her last resort--a tone that made a man feel that he had been cruel to her, made him feel like a beast who had misunderstood and trampled on a precious privilege. But Benedict answered instantly without embarrassment:
"Because you are engaged to another man, and because--I am in love with another woman! Good wishes and good afternoon, Dorothy!"
Without even taking her hand, he bowed and went out from her presence.
Dorothy Stanford, pampered child of fortune, stood still in the great room, her little hand fallen to her side rejected, the great bowl of costly roses behind her, and her gorgeous diamond flashing from the table by her side. But a strange, cold fear was creeping into her silly little heart with the conviction that this strong, true man, on whom she had leaned in spite of her follies, was gone from her forever! He loved another woman! How strange, how impossible, how calamitous it seemed!
She moved across the long room to the window as in a dream. She drew the heavy silk curtains aside and looked out, watching him as he walked with strong, quick stride down the street, walking out of her life i
nto the life of another woman. Who was the other woman? How she hated her! And two real tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed their cleansing over her sinful little hands, two tears so small beside her childish guilt! So inadequate to wash away the stains of all the follies she had wrought!
Out into the clear autumn air and late afternoon sunshine walked the man with a buoyancy of step and a lightness of heart that he had not felt since he was a child. Despite his weakness, he walked as if on wings. He was free of heart and might go to the woman he loved and tell her all his soul. He called a taxi and hurried away to the half-past-four train, rejoicing that he had not been delayed overnight. It seemed as though he had been away from her for weeks and would have a great deal to tell her. Not much about the woman he had just left and his farewell to her, but volumes about his own heart life and his longing for her. All too slowly for his joy moved the wheels that carried him back to the cottage by the shore and the dear woman whom he loved. He lay back and closed his eyes to rest, but he was not aware of his weakness or weariness. He did not even remember that he had taken no nourishment since noon and had omitted his medicine since morning. His joy was bread and medicine to his soul, and for the time he needed no other.
It was late when Benedict succeeded in finding a boy to row him over to the Point. He was forced to go to a miserable little restaurant and get something to eat while he was waiting for the boy to find the owner of the boat and get the key. Yet the dirty little hole might have been a palace and the food nectar and ambrosia for all he knew, so happy was he.
Seated in the boat at last with dim distant stars overhead and the quiet dark gray of the water beneath, and all about them the lap of the tide among the rushes through which they surged noisily now and then, he suddenly became aware of a great weariness and a giving way of the forces that seemed to hold him together. He tried to pull himself out of the nervous tremor that had come upon him, but strange fears had beset him. Suppose she did not care for him! Suppose she resented his going away to Dorothy, as if he had not been honorable with her. Perhaps he should have told her his errand, or perhaps he ought to have just written Dorothy congratulating her and stayed with the woman he loved. And yet, he now felt that no written word would have been as final as the experience through which they had passed. Dorothy had done her utmost, and he had not returned to his former feeling about her in the least. The utmost he had felt for her was pity and contempt. He despised himself for not having seen before how shallow and faithless she was.
Out of the Storm Page 9